-- President James Monroe
Showing posts with label raise taxes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label raise taxes. Show all posts
Thursday, March 1, 2012
Quote Of The Day
March 1st, 2012
"To impose taxes when the public exigencies require them is an obligation of the most sacred character, especially with a free people."
-- President James Monroe
-- President James Monroe
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Meet Nick Hanauer
Feb 12th, 2012
Meet Nick Hanauer. Self-made multi-millionaire, venture capitalist and member of the so-called 1%, he recently spoke with Yahoo! Finance commentator Henry Blodget and more than a few folks are sitting up to take notice:
Meet Nick Hanauer. Self-made multi-millionaire, venture capitalist and member of the so-called 1%, he recently spoke with Yahoo! Finance commentator Henry Blodget and more than a few folks are sitting up to take notice:
"We are systematically destroying our customer base in this country by undercutting the middle class... If it was true that the rich and business were job creators, we'd be drowning in jobs today."
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Raise. Taxes. Dammit. cont...
Oct 8th, 2011
I've been arguing for quite some time that we have to raise taxes dramatically. The rabid devotion within both parties towards maintaining the lowest revenue rates in more than half a century are absurd. Howard Gleckman, of the the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institutions, sees little reason to hope for better when the best proposal we've gotten, the American Jobs Act, is based around such ridiculous premises as this:
"Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s plan to fund a $445 billion stimulus, err, jobs bill with a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires is not all bad. After all, Tax the Rich does make a nice campaign bumper-sticker. But it is mostly bad."
Agreed. Unless and until we restore rates to levels that correspond with sustainable government, we merely hasten our decline and our debt crisis.
"The idea, endorsed today by President Obama, would raise the average tax bill of those making a million or more by $110,000, the Tax Policy Center estimates. Almost nobody else would pay a nickel. What’s wrong with that, you might ask if you don’t happen to make a million. To start, it perpetuates the dangerous myth that we can address our fiscal problems by taxing only a handful of rich people. Unfortunately, as my Tax Policy Center colleagues showed so well a couple of years ago, we can’t. There are not enough of them– so their rates would have to be astronomically high (only about a half-million households will make a million or more in 2013).
Democrats now insist that somebody making $999,000 a year is in the struggling middle-class and needs to be protected from tax increases. It was ridiculous enough when President Obama decided that $200,000 ($250,000 for couples) defined middle class. It was even stranger when GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney adopted that number. Median household income in the U.S. is, um, $60,000. Sorry, but if we are going to get serious about the deficit, people making $200,000 (or even $100,000) have got to help out."
And it is this drop in the bucket from the wealthiest in America that Eric Cantor calls "dead on arrival."
I've been arguing for quite some time that we have to raise taxes dramatically. The rabid devotion within both parties towards maintaining the lowest revenue rates in more than half a century are absurd. Howard Gleckman, of the the Tax Policy Center of the Urban Institute and the Brookings Institutions, sees little reason to hope for better when the best proposal we've gotten, the American Jobs Act, is based around such ridiculous premises as this:
"Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid’s plan to fund a $445 billion stimulus, err, jobs bill with a 5.6 percent surtax on millionaires is not all bad. After all, Tax the Rich does make a nice campaign bumper-sticker. But it is mostly bad."
Agreed. Unless and until we restore rates to levels that correspond with sustainable government, we merely hasten our decline and our debt crisis.
"The idea, endorsed today by President Obama, would raise the average tax bill of those making a million or more by $110,000, the Tax Policy Center estimates. Almost nobody else would pay a nickel. What’s wrong with that, you might ask if you don’t happen to make a million. To start, it perpetuates the dangerous myth that we can address our fiscal problems by taxing only a handful of rich people. Unfortunately, as my Tax Policy Center colleagues showed so well a couple of years ago, we can’t. There are not enough of them– so their rates would have to be astronomically high (only about a half-million households will make a million or more in 2013).
Democrats now insist that somebody making $999,000 a year is in the struggling middle-class and needs to be protected from tax increases. It was ridiculous enough when President Obama decided that $200,000 ($250,000 for couples) defined middle class. It was even stranger when GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney adopted that number. Median household income in the U.S. is, um, $60,000. Sorry, but if we are going to get serious about the deficit, people making $200,000 (or even $100,000) have got to help out."
And it is this drop in the bucket from the wealthiest in America that Eric Cantor calls "dead on arrival."
Monday, October 3, 2011
Reagan & Obama... Vs Today's GOP
Oct 3rd, 2011
My, how things change. A little over a quarter century ago, President Reagan sounded an awful lot like the "anti-business," "Marxist" "usurper" in the White House today on the topic of closing tax loopholes for the very rich.
Hat tip to ThinkProgress' Pat Garofalo for posting the video below. Read her piece HERE.
My, how things change. A little over a quarter century ago, President Reagan sounded an awful lot like the "anti-business," "Marxist" "usurper" in the White House today on the topic of closing tax loopholes for the very rich.
Hat tip to ThinkProgress' Pat Garofalo for posting the video below. Read her piece HERE.
Tuesday, September 20, 2011
Monday, September 19, 2011
A Vast Majority Backs Higher Taxes... Still
Sept 19th, 2011
Is the President's call to raise taxes on those who make more than one million dollars a year "class warfare" as so many Republicans have been suggesting? Well, not according to a vast majority of Americans. Period.
Bruce Bartlett did a round up today of every current poll that has asked Americans their opinions on the matter. He notes that "three-fourths of people support higher taxes and only 21 percent support the doctrinaire right-wing position." A screen cap of the results is shown below (the original is interactive and links back to each source).
Is the President's call to raise taxes on those who make more than one million dollars a year "class warfare" as so many Republicans have been suggesting? Well, not according to a vast majority of Americans. Period.
Bruce Bartlett did a round up today of every current poll that has asked Americans their opinions on the matter. He notes that "three-fourths of people support higher taxes and only 21 percent support the doctrinaire right-wing position." A screen cap of the results is shown below (the original is interactive and links back to each source).
Quote Of The Day - Here and Now Edition
Sept 19th, 2011
"This is not class warfare. It's math."
-- President Barack Obama on his latest revenue proposals.
-- President Barack Obama on his latest revenue proposals.
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
"I'll Eat Your Shoe"
Aug 23rd, 2011
Any regular reader can tell you I have no great love for Ben Stein. He is vulgar and elitist. However, he has come hurtling back to the truth regarding taxes. On O'Reilly last night, it was clear that Stein has simply had enough of Fox's economic propaganda. Dynamite stuff.
"There is no correlation, Mr. O’Reilly, between taxes rates on millionaires and people above that level, billionaires, and the growth of the economy… Higher taxes have historically correlated with more growth."
"Mr. O’Reilly, sir, there is no correlation of raising taxes and unemployment. If you can show it to me, I’ll eat your shoe."
via Media Matters
Any regular reader can tell you I have no great love for Ben Stein. He is vulgar and elitist. However, he has come hurtling back to the truth regarding taxes. On O'Reilly last night, it was clear that Stein has simply had enough of Fox's economic propaganda. Dynamite stuff.
"There is no correlation, Mr. O’Reilly, between taxes rates on millionaires and people above that level, billionaires, and the growth of the economy… Higher taxes have historically correlated with more growth."
"Mr. O’Reilly, sir, there is no correlation of raising taxes and unemployment. If you can show it to me, I’ll eat your shoe."
via Media Matters
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Monday, August 1, 2011
Quote Of The Day
August 1st, 2011
"I like to pay taxes. With them, I buy civilization."
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes
Thursday, July 28, 2011
Government of S&P, By S&P and For S&P
July 28th, 2011
A number of analysts are finally getting around to asking some very sensible questions regarding the power and influence of Moody’s, Fitch, and Standard & Poor’s in the debt limit boondoggle.
Although we probably should have started this conversation months ago, it's better late than never. Robert Reich draws attention to the fact that the "$4 trillion in savings" figure we've been hearing Republicans insist upon day after day is a target specifically set by S&P, an unelected private firm.
Although we probably should have started this conversation months ago, it's better late than never. Robert Reich draws attention to the fact that the "$4 trillion in savings" figure we've been hearing Republicans insist upon day after day is a target specifically set by S&P, an unelected private firm.
Monday, April 4, 2011
Reich On Taxing The Rich
April 4th, 2011
On Friday, I wrote a plea for a return to some sense of sanity regarding tax policy.
Today, Robert Reich wrote:
"Here's the truth: The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.
Even if we got rid of corporate welfare subsidies for big oil, big agriculture, and big Pharma -- even if we cut back on our bloated defense budget -- it wouldn't be nearly enough.
The vast majority of Americans can't afford to pay more. Despite an economy that's twice as large as it was thirty years ago, the bottom 90 percent are still stuck in the mud. If they're employed they're earning on average only about $280 more a year than thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. That's less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century. (Families are doing somewhat better but that's only because so many families now have to rely on two incomes.)"
On Friday, I wrote a plea for a return to some sense of sanity regarding tax policy.
Today, Robert Reich wrote:
"Here's the truth: The only way America can reduce the long-term budget deficit, maintain vital services, protect Social Security and Medicare, invest more in education and infrastructure, and not raise taxes on the working middle class is by raising taxes on the super rich.
 |
| Source - The Center for Budget and Policy Priorities - CBPP |
Even if we got rid of corporate welfare subsidies for big oil, big agriculture, and big Pharma -- even if we cut back on our bloated defense budget -- it wouldn't be nearly enough.
The vast majority of Americans can't afford to pay more. Despite an economy that's twice as large as it was thirty years ago, the bottom 90 percent are still stuck in the mud. If they're employed they're earning on average only about $280 more a year than thirty years ago, adjusted for inflation. That's less than a 1 percent gain over more than a third of a century. (Families are doing somewhat better but that's only because so many families now have to rely on two incomes.)"
We are quickly running out of time to right our course. The proof of the deepening plutocracy which drives our monetary policy is revealed in the hard numbers showing a majority of Americans were opposed to the extension of the "W Tax Cuts" for the hyper-wealthy. Tomorrow, it appears Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) is going to double down on this madness. This is because they don't care what the people think.
Our window of opportunity is closing.
Friday, April 1, 2011
Raise. Taxes. Dammit.
March 30th, 2011
by F. Grey Parker
I have never seen so many self-described "adults" issue public declarations that a glorious America can be achieved exclusively by allowing the rich to eat their cake and have it too. Honest liberals and conservatives are increasingly coalescing around what I have been saying for years; That is, that Reaganomic idealism is as naive as pure socialism. It is non-sustainable. It wreaks havoc over time. Most notably, it's childish. It is predicated on economic faith rather than statistical science. It's not a philosophy; it's a tee-shirt.
America faces a crippling crisis of revenue and not spending. Say it with me. "Revenue." The next person you hear who makes dire pronouncements about how "destructive" the United States' corporate or highest marginal individual tax rates are is either willfully stupid or they are lying.
One of the great ironies of the success American "conservatives" have achieved in utterly corrupting our tax code is that we, the American taxpayer, are essentially underwriting two thirds of America's publicly traded corporations. The right has, for all intensive purposes, begun nationalizing some of our businesses with the slick caveat that we receive no dividends for our investment. This is not hyperbole. For example, "Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings."
Exxon Mobil made no commitment to domestic workforce expansion. They made no commitment to invest in our infrastructure. They made no commitment to keep more of their currency reserves in country. In fact, in 2009 they outsourced 1 billion dollars in contracts to India alone. They did nothing for the United States of America that warrants middle class taxpayers forking over $156 million dollars. Unless we are investors. When do we receive our shares? This is the real government Ponzi scheme, not Social Security.
The supply-side argument for decades has been that the more we "let businesses keep" the more they will invest. That this has turned out to be so provably untrue is completely ignored by "free market" fundamentalists. There is no arguing with those in our country who have bought into this nonsense. It turns out that the more we let the rich keep, the more they keep. Surprise. Cash hoarding takes less work than "innovation." It also involves less "risk." Most importantly, it incurs the least "uncertainty" as far as financial choices are concerned.
My "radical" suggestion since roughly 2003, when I first actually read Bush 2's jaw droppingly stupid tax proposals , has been to suggest a return to the Eisenhower Era code. Seriously. I am endorsing the economic worldview of one of our nation's great Republicans. I am not the only one who has noticed the absurd vilification that this sort of talk receives.
Andrew Sullivan wrote recently:
"Income tax rates are now lower than they were under Ronald Reagan and far lower than they were under Eisenhower. And yet it has become a Norquistian non-negotiable that no taxes can be raised at all on anyone, let alone the beneficiaries of the last thirty years - and those who differ must be "leftists" - even when the US is facing debt of historic and dangerous proportions. Someone advocating what Eisenhower was perfectly comfortable with would be regarded by the Republican right today as a communist. And yet, of course, Eisenhower was emphatically not a Communist, whatever the John Birch society believed. In retrospect, he might even be seen as the most successful small-c conservative of the 20th century. "
Sully went on to cite a tough piece by Glenn Greenwald titled Billionaire Self Pity and The Koch Brothers which I also recommend.
It's worse than this, though. There really are no more loopholes to create when you've reduced the majority corporate tax burden to zero. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder may be tipping the hand we can expect to be played nationally by these folks. Having no other way to give our money to corporations in his state, he has now devised a scheme that actually raises taxes on the poor and middle class to do so. This is with no new expansion, construction or hiring guarantees. I am sure the corporations will do the right thing with our money.
The class war is on. The rich declared it on the rest of us. That they are winning is a testament not only to their long term planning and well organized propaganda, but to the inherent trust ordinary Americans had developed over several generations in a brighter tomorrow. They have used our own optimism against us. I'll spare you the frog in a cold pot metaphor but it is increasingly apt. The solution is also incredibly simple... Raise taxes, dammit.
by F. Grey Parker
I have never seen so many self-described "adults" issue public declarations that a glorious America can be achieved exclusively by allowing the rich to eat their cake and have it too. Honest liberals and conservatives are increasingly coalescing around what I have been saying for years; That is, that Reaganomic idealism is as naive as pure socialism. It is non-sustainable. It wreaks havoc over time. Most notably, it's childish. It is predicated on economic faith rather than statistical science. It's not a philosophy; it's a tee-shirt.
America faces a crippling crisis of revenue and not spending. Say it with me. "Revenue." The next person you hear who makes dire pronouncements about how "destructive" the United States' corporate or highest marginal individual tax rates are is either willfully stupid or they are lying.
One of the great ironies of the success American "conservatives" have achieved in utterly corrupting our tax code is that we, the American taxpayer, are essentially underwriting two thirds of America's publicly traded corporations. The right has, for all intensive purposes, begun nationalizing some of our businesses with the slick caveat that we receive no dividends for our investment. This is not hyperbole. For example, "Exxon Mobil made $19 billion in profits in 2009. Exxon not only paid no federal income taxes, it actually received a $156 million rebate from the IRS, according to its SEC filings."
Exxon Mobil made no commitment to domestic workforce expansion. They made no commitment to invest in our infrastructure. They made no commitment to keep more of their currency reserves in country. In fact, in 2009 they outsourced 1 billion dollars in contracts to India alone. They did nothing for the United States of America that warrants middle class taxpayers forking over $156 million dollars. Unless we are investors. When do we receive our shares? This is the real government Ponzi scheme, not Social Security.
The supply-side argument for decades has been that the more we "let businesses keep" the more they will invest. That this has turned out to be so provably untrue is completely ignored by "free market" fundamentalists. There is no arguing with those in our country who have bought into this nonsense. It turns out that the more we let the rich keep, the more they keep. Surprise. Cash hoarding takes less work than "innovation." It also involves less "risk." Most importantly, it incurs the least "uncertainty" as far as financial choices are concerned.
My "radical" suggestion since roughly 2003, when I first actually read Bush 2's jaw droppingly stupid tax proposals , has been to suggest a return to the Eisenhower Era code. Seriously. I am endorsing the economic worldview of one of our nation's great Republicans. I am not the only one who has noticed the absurd vilification that this sort of talk receives.
Andrew Sullivan wrote recently:
"Income tax rates are now lower than they were under Ronald Reagan and far lower than they were under Eisenhower. And yet it has become a Norquistian non-negotiable that no taxes can be raised at all on anyone, let alone the beneficiaries of the last thirty years - and those who differ must be "leftists" - even when the US is facing debt of historic and dangerous proportions. Someone advocating what Eisenhower was perfectly comfortable with would be regarded by the Republican right today as a communist. And yet, of course, Eisenhower was emphatically not a Communist, whatever the John Birch society believed. In retrospect, he might even be seen as the most successful small-c conservative of the 20th century. "
Sully went on to cite a tough piece by Glenn Greenwald titled Billionaire Self Pity and The Koch Brothers which I also recommend.
It's worse than this, though. There really are no more loopholes to create when you've reduced the majority corporate tax burden to zero. Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder may be tipping the hand we can expect to be played nationally by these folks. Having no other way to give our money to corporations in his state, he has now devised a scheme that actually raises taxes on the poor and middle class to do so. This is with no new expansion, construction or hiring guarantees. I am sure the corporations will do the right thing with our money.
The class war is on. The rich declared it on the rest of us. That they are winning is a testament not only to their long term planning and well organized propaganda, but to the inherent trust ordinary Americans had developed over several generations in a brighter tomorrow. They have used our own optimism against us. I'll spare you the frog in a cold pot metaphor but it is increasingly apt. The solution is also incredibly simple... Raise taxes, dammit.
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